The Ron and Don Show is a talk radio show in Seattle, Washington

Seattle, Washington

Seattle is the county seat of King County, Washington. With 608,660 residents as of the 2010 Census, Seattle is the largest city in the Northwestern United States. The Seattle metropolitan area of about 3.4 million inhabitants is the 15th largest metropolitan area in the country...

. It airs on 97.3 KIRO FM from 3:00-7:00 pm (Pacific Time

Pacific Time Zone

The Pacific Time Zone observes standard time by subtracting eight hours from Coordinated Universal Time . The clock time in this zone is based on the mean solar time of the 120th meridian west of the Greenwich Observatory. During daylight saving time, its time offset is UTC-7.In the United States...

) weekdays. The show is hosted by Ron Upshaw and Don O'Neill.

Ron Upshaw

Ron Upshaw was born in Mt. Vernon, Washington and raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He is currently married and lives in Maple Valley

Maple Valley, Washington

Maple Valley is a city in King County, Washington, United States. The population was 22,684 at the 2010 census.-History:The area was first settled in 1879 by three men who were improving a trail and brought their families in. When a name for a future community was proposed, the names Vine Maple...

, Washington. He also greatly enjoys beekeeping and has produced several instructional DVDs for beginning beekeepers.

Don O'Neill

Don O'Neill was born outside Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

 and raised in New Mexico where he attended high school with Ron Upshaw. He is currently single and lives in Seattle.

History

The show began as a weekend sports radio program on KJR-AM

KJR-AM

KJR is an all-sports radio station based in Seattle, Washington, owned by Clear Channel Communications. KJR currently is the flagship station of the University of Washington, including Husky football and men's basketball broadcasts...

 in 1995 before moving to San Francisco in 1997 where Upshaw and O'Neill hosted morning drive on KCTC-AM.
While on the Flagship Station for the Oakland Raiders, Ron & Don hosted the Joe Bugel Show, The Tim Brown Show, and The Jon Gruden Show.

The show subsequently moved to Phoenix station KZZP-FM

KZZP

KZZP, 104.7 KISS-FM, is a Top 40 radio outlet serving the Phoenix, Arizona area. The Clear Channel Communications station broadcasts at 104.7 MHz with an Effective radiated power of 100 kW and is licensed in Mesa, Arizona. Due to its 100 kW tower located atop South Mountain, the station can...

 and then Dallas' KYNG-FM In Dallas, Don O'Neill hosted the CBS Network shows on the Dallas Cowboy Radio Network with Drew Person and Charlie Waters for the 2001-2002 NFL season. Ron Upshaw hosted the Pre and Post game shows at the first Dallas Cowboy home game after the 9/11 Terrorist Attack.

The Ron & Don Show returned to Seattle in 2002 where they broadcast the morning show on former Hot Talk station KQBZ-FM

KKWF

KKWF , known as "The New 100.7 The Wolf", is a Country music radio station based in Seattle, Washington. The Entercom outlet broadcasts at 100.7 MHz with an effective radiated power of 67 kW. Its transmitter is located in Seattle.-History:...

. After a stop at WKLQ in Grand Rapids, Michigan

Grand Rapids, Michigan

Grand Rapids is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan. The city is located on the Grand River about 40 miles east of Lake Michigan. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 188,040. In 2010, the Grand Rapids metropolitan area had a population of 774,160 and a combined statistical area, Grand...

, the Ron & Don Show settled briefly at KKND-FM in New Orleans until Hurricane Katrina

Hurricane Katrina

Hurricane Katrina of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was a powerful Atlantic hurricane. It is the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the United States. Among recorded Atlantic hurricanes, it was the sixth strongest overall...

 destroyed the KKND transmitter, leaving the show without a broadcast home. An opportunity to fill-in for KIRO-AM host Dave Ross

Dave Ross

Dave Ross is a talk show host on Seattle's KIRO-FM radio station, with whom he had been a news anchor from 1978 until his talk show started nine years later in 1987. He has sometimes broadcast his show while on assignment in other locations, including overseas, such as Baghdad, Iraq in April...

 led to a permanent assignment from 9:00pm to 1:00am in Seattle. In May 2006 their time slot was changed to afternoon drive from 3:00pm to 6:00pm.

The program was live on-air at the time of the Seattle Jewish Federation shooting in 2006; KIRO-AM won a 2007 Edward R. Murrow Award for Spot News for its coverage of this incident. The show also received attention for fundraising efforts in response to Hurricane Katrina, in conjunction with the Seattle Seahawks

Seattle Seahawks

The Seattle Seahawks are a professional American football team based in Seattle, Washington. They are currently members of the Western Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League . The team joined the NFL in 1976 as an expansion team...

 and the Preservation Resource Center

Preservation Resource Center

The Preservation Resource Center is a non-profit organization which promotes the historic preservation of buildings and architecture in New Orleans.-Mission:New Orleans is a city famous for its architecture...

, including a live show from the front porch of a rebuilt New Orleans home.

In 2008, following the cancellation of KIRO's short-lived long-form newscast - "The Big Story with Tony Miner" - the Ron & Don Show was extended by an hour to its current time slot of 3:00pm to 7:00pm. As of winter 2008 the program was designated as the top rated radio show in its time slot in the Seattle-Tacoma market but in summer of 2009 Arbitron's introduction of PPM's (Personal People Meters) dropped the now FM-only KIRO along with "Ron and Don" to approximately 15th in the market.

With steady ratings growth, The Ron and Don Show is now the highest rated spoken word show in the Seattle/Tacoma Market.

Guests

Since returning to Seattle, show guests include Sig Hansen

Sig Hansen

Sigurd Jonny "Sig" Hansen is an American Captain of the fishing vessel Northwestern. Since 2006, Hansen has been featured in all seasons of the documentary television series Deadliest Catch, for which he also serves as technical advisor for the production.-Early life:Sigurd Jonny Hansen was born...

 and Keith Colburn of television program "Deadliest Catch

Deadliest Catch

Deadliest Catch is a documentary/reality television series produced by Original Productions for the Discovery Channel. It portrays the real life events aboard fishing vessels in the Bering Sea during the Alaskan king crab and C. opilio crab fishing seasons.The Aleutian Islands port of Dutch Harbor,...

". Famous guests have included Jimmy Carter

Jimmy Carter

James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...

, Arianna Huffington

Arianna Huffington

Arianna Huffington is a Greek American author and syndicated columnist. She is best known as co-founder of the news website The Huffington Post. A popular conservative commentator in the mid-1990s, she adopted more liberal political beliefs in the late 1990s...

, Colin Hanks

Colin Hanks

Colin Lewes Hanks is an American actor who is best known for his work as Shaun Brumder in the film Orange County and as Alex Whitman in Roswell. He also portrayed the role of Henry Jones in Band of Brothers and is currently on the sixth season of the Showtime crime drama Dexter...

 and Bill Maher

Bill Maher

William "Bill" Maher, Jr. is an American stand-up comedian, television host, political commentator, author and actor. Before his current role as the host of HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher, Maher hosted a similar late-night talk show called Politically Incorrect originally on Comedy Central and...

.

Topics

The program is a variety talk show, dealing with a mixture of sports, entertainment and news topics.

Each Friday is devoted to a listener contest called "Stump Ron's Mom", in which trivia questions about topics covered during the show in the preceding week are alternately posed to a call-in listener and Ron Upshaw's mother, who calls-in to the show from her home in Florida.

Awards

•The Ron & Don Show was voted Best Local Radio Show by the readers of Seattle Weekly in 2008.
•Winner of the 2003 Soundie Award for Best Live Radio from the Puget Sound Radio Broadcasters Association.
•Presented with the Citizen's Award by the Seattle Police Guild. "The Seattle Police Guild honored the Ron and Don Nation with a citizens award Wednesday for the money raised with Armed Around Our Officers and for the phone tips that helped capture Christopher Monfort."
•Given The Heart of Pioneer Square award on November 16, 2006 for a series of stories on the open air drug market problems in the neighborhood.